STEPHEN Dank is being pushed to the limit as AFL's drugs scandal patsy but the fallout is set to hit Essendon and major sports harder next week.

Federal Sports Minister Kate Lundy has revealed that funding will be reviewed for any sports whose elite athletes are found to have used banned substances or involved in match fixing following the bombshell Australian Crime Commission investigation.

Other AFL clubs will come under scrutiny next week while Dank will publicly outline his position as a `scapegoat' in the Essendon doping furore also involving high performance manager Dean Robinson.

Academics contacted by The Advertiser consider Dank more a nutty professor type than system doper. It is understood Dank has told confidantes he's struggling to cope with a position at the epicentre of an Essendon drugs furore that is set to rebound on leading figures at the club this week.

``Following the outcome of the investigation, if clubs or athletes are implicated any existing federal funding arrangements will be reviewed,'' a spokeswoman for Minister Lundy said.

``Sport science is about innovation, not cheating.''

Essendon football manager Mark Thompson brought high performance manager Dean Robinson and Dank from Geelong to Bomberland in 2012. A propensity to `push boundaries' allegedly through use of injection of supplements last year at Essendon landed Dank in trouble.

Results of an ASADA investigation into the legality of supplements given to Bomber players will hold the key to clearing Dank's name. Adelaide University physiology expert Dr David Bentley co-authored a paper on the effect of Antioxidant Supplementation on Fatigue

During Exercise with Dank in 2010. Dr Bentley said he had no issues with Dank's knowledge base but shared a concern he was not a menber of the Exercise & Sports Science Australia or similar organisation. Dank was also a masters student of University of SA Exercise Science Professor Kevin Norton in the 1990s.

Norton this week told The Advertiser that Dank was talented but disagreed with some methods which included a proposal to conduct genetic testing in 2006 on Adelaide Crows players.

The Crows refused Dank's costly DNA testing procedures which NRL club Manly would adopt with premiership success in 2008 and 2011. Dr Bentley agreed genetic screening had `the potential to be a valuable tool in optimising athletic training'. Dr Bentley said the ACC report should not taint the work of sports scientists.

``All of this press about renegade sports scientists detracts from professionally accredited sports scientists,'' Dr Bentley said. ``A lot of guys are not regulated or professionally recognised. Other guys working in the industry dont even have any tertiary education. Fitness trainers branded as so called 'sport scientists' or 'performance scientists' are exposed to the athletes directly.''

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